There is little of the central plain of Phuoc Tuy which
cannot be seen from the long level ridge which crowns Nui
Nghe. The hill is visible on a clear day from Vung Tau as a
small grey bump on the northern horizon, but its 600 feet of
steep, thickly covered slope become greener as one
approaches. At Baria it is grey green, at
Nui Dat dark
green, while in amongst the tangle of bush and bamboo which
lead up to it, Nui Nghe becomes a rich mid green. As the
highest piece of ground within a few miles of our base, it
seemed fairly obviously that we should investigate it as
soon as possible. The area around Nui Nghe had not been
cleared during Operation Hardihood, so we had to discover
what use the Viet Cong had been making of it.

The first
opportunity for sweeping through the area of Nui Nghe arose
in early July. The Sixth Battalion RAR was engaged from
mid June to early July in searching Long Phuoc and in
destroying the great number of tunnels which the Viet Cong
had dug there. While the Sixth Battalion was out of the base
we had to remain behind in order to defend it and patrol the
approaches. One of our companies was always in the vacated
Sixth Battalion defences while another was stood by as the
Task Force emergency reserve. This situation was reversed
when we were out on operations, but it meant that we had to
wait until the Sixth Battalion had completed the search of
Long Phuoc before we could commence our next operation --
Operation Sydney.

Nui Nghe was
known to be a focal point for Viet Cong tracks. We did not
know exactly where these
tracks ran but we did know that the Viet Cong moved between
Binh Ba, the rubber plantation village, and the Dinh Hills.
Nui Nghe lay close to the direct line joining these two
places. The main bases of the Hat Dich area lay to the north
of Nui Nghe and tracks from these bases joined and crossed
the Binh Ba - Dinh Hills track. Intelligence reports had
indicated that the Viet Cong had established some caches and
camps there of an auxiliary nature to support their
operations in central Phuoc Tuy and it seemed very likely
that the Viet Cong had been observing us from the summit of
Nui Nghe.

The Viet Cong
forces that we were likely to encounter on Operation Sydney
were the guerilla platoon based in Binh Ba and Duc My, the
Montagnard hamlet to the south of Binh Ba, and the Chau Duc
District company which operated and lived in western Phuoc Tuy. The possibility of the appearance of the 274 Regiment
could not be discounted, for it was located 10 miles north
of Nui Nghe. Hence, each company would have to take
precautions so that it was not ambushed or attacked in an
area where it could be cut off from support of the other
companies.

This problem
was similar in some ways to that posed by
Operation
Hardihood. However, the country around Nui Nghe was much
less penetrable in the region where the forward companies
would be operating. This factor ruled out the possibility of
reinforcing by lateral movement of the forward companies and
forced us to keep a central reserve which could be sent
forward quickly, mounted on the troop of
armoured personnel
carriers (APC's) which was supporting the operation. Thus
the number of searching companies had to be reduced to three
in order to provide one company as a reserve to be located
at battalion headquarters.

Provision of
artillery support for the forward companies was another
problem. While the possibility of a company encountering one
or more battalions' of the 274 Regiment existed, it was
essential that each company's movements were within range of
the field artillery. Many of the areas to be searched were
at the extreme range of the guns at Nui Dat. Should a
company had wished to pursue any Viet Cong to the north or
the west of the search areas it would have been forced to
move without artillery cover and thus would have been
vulnerable to any Viet Cong ruse designed to lure it out
from its protective umbrella of fire. Even if the companies
did not move outside the limits of extreme range from the
Nui Dat batteries there were many disadvantages in operating
at ranges close to the extreme, such as the greatly
increased susceptibility of shells to varying air currents
and temperature layers in the air. There was much to
recommend that our supporting battery,
105 Field battery,
should accompany the battalion to a new gun position within
a few thousand yards of Nui Nghe.

Weighing
against this consideration was the need to provide
protection for the guns. The Viet Cong have always paid
great attention to exposed or vulnerable gun positions in
order to prevent the guns from firing by sniping at their
crews or to capture these priceless pieces of equipment
which they so badly need. Protection of a battery of guns
requires at least a company of infantry so the requirements
of a central reserve, and of protection for the guns were
merged by siting the battalion headquarters at a suitable
gun position for supporting forward companies. This
arrangement also made the APC's available for bringing up
additional ammunition for the guns.

Several areas
were considered for the guns and these were examined by
patrols and an artillery officer. It was essential that the
area selected was within gun range of the whole of the area
to be searched, that APC's could reach it without becoming
bogged, that the guns could have hard ground and that water
was available nearby. One area which had been selected was
rejected forty-eight hours before the operation because
heavy rain had made it risky for the APC's. The final choice
was the crest of a low hill, one and a half miles to the
west of Nui Dat, which was code named 'Tennis', a name which
was to adhere to that piece of ground, often to be crossed
by our patrols, for the following ten months.

Early on July
6th the battalion filed out of the base in company groups. A
Company headed of to the west of Nui Nghe, C Company towards
the eastern slopes, to wheel south a few days later and come
back over the crest of the hill, D Company to the flatter
country between Nui Nghe and the Binh Ba plantation and the
remainder of the battalion, B Company, the Assault Pioneer
Platoon and the Anti-Tank Platoon accompanied the
headquarters to tennis.

We did not
wish to let the Viet Cong know that the gun area had been
established, for their commanders would have been able to
determine the area which we planned to search. Therefore,
the guns were moved from Nui Dat to Tennis inside
APC's. By
exchanging the smaller tyred wheels of the New Zealand
battery with those of 105 battery it was just possible to
fit the latter guns inside the APC's. For five days before
the operation, joint patrols of APC's and infantry moved
through the general area of Tennis in order to establish a
pattern of movement which the Viet Cong might consider to be
of minor importance.

During the
following ten days the companies wound back and forth,
discovering a great number of small camps and huts, trench,
four feet wide and four feet deep, ran for over four hundred
yards. Each company had encounters with small groups of Viet
Cong who were living in, or traveling through the area.
Lieutenant Hartley's platoon of A Company met a group of
several Viet Cong who were much superior in fighting ability
to any who had been encountered up to that time. This group
wore black uniforms and webbing their packs were black, they
had black turbans on their heads and were armed with
automatic weapons. A heavy firefight broke out between one
of Hartley's sections and this group. By skilful direction
during which he exposed himself to danger several times and
was wounded, Hartley drove off the Viet Cong, inflicting
casualties on what were probably our first main force
opponents. Lieutenant Hartley was mentioned in dispatches
for his leadership in this action.